


We Can Be Like They Are

by blankverses



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, First Time, Hope, Inspired by Music, M/M, Memories, Pre-Canon, Random Song Challenge, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:42:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blankverses/pseuds/blankverses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old story for a song-fic challenge, using "Don't Feat the Reaper".  A story about memory and music, love and loss, and hope; a story about secrets and the songs that tell them if only you knew how to listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Can Be Like They Are

When Sam was a child -- well, when Sam was young, as now, in his early twenties, he felt old beyond his years and knew that childhood was something he had never truly had – but when Sam was a boy he spent countless hours in the backseat of the car, listening as his father and brother spoke in low voices, watching as the road seemed to go on forever, the hills and woods and flatlands blurring past the car in an endless loop, the radio playing song after song that he had heard a thousand times before. It normally didn’t matter what his father and brother were saying, they were there and that was enough, most times, to get him through. The rise and fall of their words washed over him, bathed him in something both horrible and reassuring, and he let them go, let them slide through his mind until it was just a familiar hum. Each town they moved through was like the last, like the one that would come next, and when thinking back on this time later in life he could not exactly say where those travels had taken him. Each town was filled with people going about their lives in a quiet sort of way, day after day filled with toil and few surprises, year after year spent standing still in the same small place, never knowing that it was the same as the next place and the next, that their troubles and their passions were repeated in an unbroken chain from one side of the world to the other. In between these trips he moved as one of them, passed for one of them, but that hardly mattered, since he knew that school and hometown and neighbors were things that only really happened to other people, and with a child’s stoicism he accepted this as his essential truth even as he railed against it.

What he remembers most from that time was the music. The songs that were the same wherever they went, playing in a gentle, endless rhythm that controlled his life. He could count on the music to be the same from one day to the next, holding the world together as he learned how to hunt, learned how to kill. The songs were the glue that held his memory of those times together. 

In college he immersed himself fully in normal life, and could laugh and smile at the stories his friends told of legends and reputed hauntings and horror movies and scary novels. He could pretend that he believed these things to be nothing more than imagination, could look these good people in the eye and lie to them about the things that he had seen, that he knew. He could pretend that he was one of them, and in so doing distance himself from what he feared was the truth of who he was. But all it took was a certain pattern of chords, a particular voice wailing through a chorus, and the normal world around him would slip away and he was once more a boy in the backseat of a car, forehead pressed against the window as dusk deepened into night and the world around him went about its business, a business that the boy knew he could never be a part of.

Certain songs reminded him of his father. The Eagles’ “Take it Easy”, or “American Woman”. His father would sing along with that one, drumming on the steering wheel in that exuberant way that he had, whole body getting into it. Dean would often roll his eyes in an adolescent display, but Sam loved it. No matter how mad or annoyed he was with his father, seeing him in that moment, relaxed and joyful, always made him smile. John would glance in the rear view mirror, catch Sam’s eye, and in that glance Sam knew all he needed to know about his father, that John was a good man and that Sam was loved.

Other songs reminded him of Dean. The way Dean at thirteen would slouch down in his seat, trying so hard to look like he wasn’t trying, whenever “Sharp Dressed Man” came on the radio. He would roll down the window, rest his forearm along it, fingers dangling down the side of the car, aiming for disaffected, cool. Sam never dared to tell him that it didn’t work, because Dean was an awesome big brother but he was worried in those years about being cool and was apt to take this concern out on his brother’s hide. To this day the song never failed to make him smile.

And sometimes, sometimes Sam would find himself humming a certain tune without realizing it as his mind slipped away from the present, from the people around him, and he would stop himself short, instincts and reflexes kicking into overdrive as memory would flood through him and a deep and almost keening longing for his brother would fill him. There were songs and there were songs, and this one was special. It felt wrong, felt almost blasphemous to think of this one after what had happened, to listen to it or hum it or experience it in any way without Dean. _Baby take my hand_ and no, that wasn’t right, it hurt too much to remember, _we’ll be able to fly_ , and he would stop, resisting the urge to clap his hands over his ears, _we can be like they are_ and that was wrong, they could never be like anyone else, they were different and they were special and they – they – 

_Baby take my hand_.

He would fight it, but the memory was too strong, always too strong, and with a sigh that felt like giving up and that felt like coming home he would fall back in time, fall back into those long years spent searching for something that kept getting farther and father away.

**

Dean listened to music all the time because when he did he didn’t have to think. He would let himself fall into the song, the comfortable and well-worn patterns of the guitar and bass and drum, the words swirling around them, binding them together like an incantation. His tapes and his music were like talismans to him, and he clung to them with a superstitious fervor that he would never acknowledge. This music was a part of him, it spoke for him when he could not bring himself to speak, and most importantly, the music held his memories for him when he couldn’t stand to hold them himself any longer. The music was good to him, the music was kind, but sometimes, oh sometimes it could also be cruel. 

Music had always been there for him even when no one else had been. When circumstance had forced him to spend long hours, sometimes days and once or twice weeks alone in strange towns, waiting, he could count on his tapes and the jukeboxes of bars and pool halls to keep him company. Getty Lee, Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, James Hetfield, Vince Neil – those guys were always there for him, always ready to sing the fucking blues away when they threatened to get too close. They were with him when he hustled white-collar boys out of their money at the tables, lining up shots that had to be seen to be believed. They were there when he was learning about women, learning the scent of them and the feel of them; when Dean learned through much trial and error what to say to get them to like him and later what to say to get them to desire him they were there -- his boys had his back. And, more importantly, they were there during those times when he was most alone, when there was nothing but him and the darkness and the quiet in another motel room, his father out and his brother long since gone, time slowing, stretching, becoming something tangible, they were there. They drove back the loneliness that was almost suffocating, and they were happy to do it because, goddammit, if they were Dean’s boys then he was theirs.

The music was good to him, the music was kind, but sometimes, oh sometimes, it could also be cruel. Sometimes he would hear something, a half-remembered snatch of a song he couldn’t name, and he was a child again, listening as his mother sang along with the radio in the kitchen, watching as his father came up behind her, grabbed her arm and pulled her close, dipped her deep and low and graceful towards the floor, and he could see it, the smile on her face, the love in his father’s eyes as the song played on and they laughed, and it would hurt, would hurt so bad that he couldn’t breathe. Sometimes he would hear one of the songs that Sammy had liked when he went through his pop music phase, the two months where he thought the Spice Girls were the coolest thing in the world. Standing there, listening to fucking Posh and Ginger and the rest singing _if you want to be my lover_ he would have to choke back tears half of laughter and half of longing as he recalled a gangly Sam bouncing around his bedroom and dancing along with MTV.

And the song that was theirs together, that bound them as much as the blood that they shared. That belonged not to the father who taught them how to hold knife and bow and gun, but to two boys who taught each other the importance of brotherhood and later – later the importance of something else. And Dean would hear it, sometimes on the radio, sometimes in a bar, but always, always alone, and it would fill him and he would step on the accelerator or slam back his drink, try to drag himself away from the memory but it was there, it was always there, _the door was open and the wind appeared_ and he couldn’t escape it, couldn’t outrun it or drink it away, _the candles blew and then disappeared_ and he would not cry, refused to cry, Sam had made his fucking choice and Dean wasn’t a fucking pussy and he would not cry, _we can be like they are_ and he was alone, always alone, and cry he did.

_Baby take my hand_.

His music loved him, held him and hurt him, but the music never, ever left him and in Dean’s mind that made it better than family. 

**

It wasn’t the Winchester way to talk about your feelings. Not unless you had a very serious injury or had just narrowly avoided getting killed or were talking about maybe having to kill another Winchester because he was possessed or if you had saved someone else’s life at he last possible second before the mortal coil lost one more shuffler. Then you had a window, a very brief, very important window in which to express your feelings in as quick and succinct a manner as possible before the veil fell back down and you had to lock them up again. Dean and Sam had learned this rule of being a man at their father’s side, and while they both held differing and fervent opinions on John Winchester, this was something that neither of them would argue. Secrets were best kept secret, and for Sam and Dean there were many secrets to hide.

For example, what happened between them in the night. That was a secret that was best kept quiet. Not because they were ashamed or felt guilty, although sometimes that was a part of it, and they both instinctively knew that these were important feelings that they each had to work through on their own. It had to be a secret because other people wouldn’t understand, and if they talked about it, let it out in the open, someone else might find out. Who, they weren’t sure, but even without discussion they knew that if anyone else knew then the part of it that was special, that fulfilled a deep and inexplicable need in both young men, would be lost. So they didn’t talk about the times when Dean would crawl into Sam’s bed, when Sam’s arms would reach for him and pull him close, when skin was on skin and their breath was hot and rough. _We can be like they are_ but they couldn’t, that was the thing of it. Not with something like this between them, not when Sam ached for Dean to touch him, ached for Dean’s lips, Dean’s beautiful, wonderful mouth to take him deep. _All our times have come_ but Dean couldn’t believe that, not when Sam was under him and Dean was moving inside him, when everything else had fallen away, had been stripped from Dean’s mind by Sam’s gasps and moans, by Sam’s blunt, ragged fingernails that dug into Dean’s back, Dean’s hips. 

_Baby take my hand_.

Some secrets had to stay that way.

**

Sam had left for college under rather hostile conditions. Their father had been, well, less than pleased by his younger son’s decision, knowing it for what it was, a rejection of the life that he had shown him, the life that he had forged for them out of hate and fear and grief, Sam’s final refusal to accept who he was in the greater scheme of things. Dean’s understanding of the situation was much simpler. He saw it as a Sam’s rejection of everything that Dean had become.

Sam came to Dean the night before he left. He knocked on the door and was granted admittance with a rough, guttaral utterance that may or may not have been an invitation. He stepped into the room, uncertain and suddenly shy.

Dean was seated at his desk, rags and bottles of oil spread out over the surface, a stripped gun lying on a dirty cloth. He looked up at his brother.

“You still here?” 

“I leave tomorrow morning.”

Dean turned back to his gun. “Better get some sleep then.”

The dismissal was clear. Sam ignored it. He closed the door and padded barefoot across the room, sat on the edge of Dean’s bed. Their father was gone, stormed off in a rage that afternoon. It was just the two of them in the house. The two of them together as it has always been.

Dean’s tape player was going, whirring away on the nightstand.

_All our times have come, here but now they're gone_

Dean picked up a rag and dabbed some oil onto it.

“You going to look at me?”

Dean ignored the question, picked up the gun and a short aluminum rod. He pushed the rag down into the barrel of the gun. “Doubt it.”

“Dean, please, look at me.”

Dean put the gun and the cleaning rod down on the table, his hands falling into his lap. After a long moment he rolled his chair back, turned to face his brother. “What is it?”

“I don’t --“ He had spent most of the afternoon working through this conversation in his head, trying to figure out the best way to explain to Dean why he had to do this. But now, with Dean’s eyes boring into him, all the careful arguments fled. “I need you to not be mad at me.”

Dean’s face was cold. “You need a lot of things lately.”

_Seasons don't fear the reaper, nor do the wind, the sun or the rain_

“I know.” A pause. “But this is important, Dean. I need you to understand.”

“You’re going to have to get by without that.” He started to turn away but Sam’s hand darted out, grabbed Dean’s arm. Dean looked down, looked at Sam’s fingers wrapped around his forearm in a deathgrip, and with a snarl Dean flung himself from the chair, tackling Sam onto the bed.

“Understand?” Dean growled, punching a shocked Sam in the face. “You need me to fucking understand?” He hit Sam again, lower, in the belly, and Sam groaned. “Fuck you, Sammy!” 

He moved to punch Sam again but Sam’s hand shot out, grabbed Dean’s wrist, and he pulled him down, managed to wriggle until Dean was pinned underneath him, thrashing like a wild thing. “Fuck _you_ , Dean!” Sam shouted, face inches from his brother’s. “For once, this isn’t fucking about you! Can’t I have one fucking thing that’s about me!”

Dean recoiled, the fight going out of him. “It’s always about you,” he muttered bitterly. “It’s always been about you.”

Sam sat up. “Can’t you just be happy for me?” He asked, knowing as he said it that this was asking too much, asking for the impossible.

“No.” Dean pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Why the fuck would I be happy that you want to leave me?”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Sam said, and this was mostly true. “It’s not about that.”

“Then why, Sammy?”

Sam took a deep breath. “Because I have to. I can’t do this anymore, Dean. I can’t. I’m tired and I’m angry and I want something else, something – something restful. I’m sorry that you’re mad and I’m sorry that I have to leave you but I just can’t do this anymore.” Sam felt tears welling in his eyes and he was suddenly exhausted. “It’s killing me.”

Dean was silent a long moment. His face was still, but there was something in his eyes, something softer and almost infinitely sad. He said nothing, but he reached out and took Sam’s hand, pulled him down, wrapped his arms around him. Dean held him as Sam’s breath hitched in his throat, as Sam blinked away the tears that threatened to spill over. Held Sam and stroked his hair and waited.

The song played on, and in the quiet both heard it, a resolute voice singing into the dim light of the room, _Came the last night of sadness, and it was clear we couldn't go on_.

“I can’t be happy for you,” Dean murmured into Sam’s hair. It was as close as he could come to saying what he meant, and Sam understood this. “I won’t stop you but I can’t be happy for you.”

“Okay.”

Dean’s arms loosed around him, and Sam pulled back. They lay like that for some time, and there was something more that Sam wanted to say but he couldn’t get the words out, and Dean swallowed hard, but didn’t look away. Dean’s breath was warm on his skin, and Sam realized that if he kissed his brother Dean wouldn’t pull away. Realized that this was something that he could do for Dean. That he could do for himself. Slowly, warily, he leaned forward, and his lips brushed Dean’s and Dean didn’t recoil, just lay still and let Sam kiss him, and after a moment Dean kissed him back. 

Heat flushed through Sam’s body, burned along his skin. He sat up suddenly, turned away from Dean. Ran his hands through his hair and took a shaky breath. Stood and left the room, closed the door behind him without looking back. He felt weak, faint, the enormity of what he had just done bearing down on him. He had to go. Fuck waiting until morning. He had to go tonight. Get his bags and walk down the stairs, out the door and out of this house forever.

Sam opened the door. Dean was sitting on the bed, head in his hands. He looked up quickly as Sam moved inside the room, panting as though he had been running. Sam hesitated in the doorway, uncertainty radiating through his body, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. He felt himself moving towards the bed, his body floating across the room, and as he reached the foot of the bed Dean got to his knees, reached for him, and Sam was in his arms.

_We can be like they are._

Their mouths came together hard, and it was lips and tongues, hot and wet and copper where Sam’s lip had split a bit on Dean’s front tooth, and their hands were moving, everywhere at once. Somehow Dean got out of his shirt, and then he wasn’t sure how but Sam’s own shirt was gone, and their hands were fumbling at belts and zippers. Sam’s breath caught in his throat as Dean’s hand wormed its way down the front of his boxers, and he slid his own hand under the waist of Dean’s jeans, the two of them somehow managing to get Dean’s zipper undone, and Sam felt his cock twitch as Dean began to stroke it, fast, hard strokes unlike anything he’d ever gotten a girl to do for him, and he began to move his hand over Dean’s cock in turn, feeling the wonder of it hardening as his fingers moved up, down, and up again, Dean’s tongue in his mouth, kissing him deeply, roughly, and he was so hard now it hurt, Dean’s left hand holding his hip, nails digging into his skin deep enough that there would be five small crescent moon bruises there for the first week of college.

“Come for me, Sammy,” Dean purred, hand moving faster now on Sam’s cock, and Sam bit his lip as Dean’s lips moved to his neck, and he tilted his head to the side, and he was close and he knew it, and Dean knew it, and then he was there, and he came, Dean’s fingers squeezing almost painfully tight, and his body was shaking, the shock of what had happened swirling through him with the pleasure, and he was trying, trying to keep going, and Dean moaned, his own hand sliding down his body to wrap over Sam’s, and he showed him, showed Sam what he wanted, and Dean’s fingers closed over Sam’s and Sam nodded absently, Dean’s mouth still on his neck, kissing him and doing something wonderful and his hand moved faster, squeezing tighter, flipping just a bit to the right at the top of each stroke and Dean grunted, and his teeth bit down into the tender skin of Sam’s neck and he’d have a hickey there, a hickey that his roommate teased him about but never learned the truth of _we can be like they are_ and Dean came.

They leaned against each other for a moment, bodies trembling, and then Sam shakily got to his feet. He grabbed his shirt and turned, leaving the room for the second and final time.

He didn’t see Dean again for a long time after that.

**

There are some things that he just can’t say to Sammy, but he knows that Sammy understands. That Sam hears them in the spaces between words, in the comfortable silence that stretches between them sometimes when they’ve been driving for hours or are working in perfect harmony on a hunt. He knows that Sammy understands, because he can hear it in the spaces between Sam’s words and can feel it when Sam reaches for him night after night. _Loneliness is gone_. And whenever he hears that song the memories come flooding back, but they are sweeter now, the edges blunted with Sam in the bed next to him or slumped down in the passenger seat. And Dean knows that this life they’re living is a shadow life at best, and there is some bitter with the sweet when he thinks about this, but he knows that everything will be fine in the end. Because it must be, but more than that, because it should be.

_Baby take my hand_

Because they’ve earned it.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ, now archived here. "Don't Fear the Reaper" belongs, to the best of my knowledge, to Blue Oyster Cult.


End file.
